World Poetry Day, Part 1

In honor of World Poetry Day tomorrow, I'm going to walk on the wild side. Yep, I'm posting a poem. I've discovered that parenting and composing poetry can be very compatible. I have tons of time to think deep thoughts and play with imagery--while driving, weeding, doing dishes, waiting for toddlers to Just. Finish. Eating...And when they were babies? Please! Nursing, rocking to sleep, supervising tummy time--poet's paradise.

Writing them down? Well, there's the rub. If I'd managed that, I'd have books full. Complete collected works in four volumes. Needless to say, even the ones I jotted down missed the polishing and perfecting phase. But maybe that's the point--after all, parenting is all about gorgeous imperfections.

Always enamored of the moon

Today she discovered “rocketship”

The rumble of the R

The ocket-pop

Building up to a soaring ship

She launches my fancies

Into the stratosphere

Do I harbor a fledgling

Astronaut here?

Crisis! I want to be,

I need so much to be,

An astronaut—Right now!—

And the best there ever was.

Just in case

My daughter

Needs one.

Role models, rolling maneuvers,

She’ll need them all and

I want to have them, to give them--

But the laws of physics intervene.

In this space-time continuum

I have another place.

And as mother, not pilot,

I hold the greatest gift.

The stomach-dropping gift,

Bought with blood and tears.

The gift of opening my arms

And her eyes

Letting her heart leap

Admiring the soaring flights

Of other women

She’ll want to be “just like.”

3/6/07